Nice Ladies

Sveta Stopina is part of the Nice Ladies, a Ukrainian cheerleading team from Kharkiv of over-50s. With great pleasure and remarkable agility, the women practise their sport, from which a bond of friendship has developed that is unbreakable. Everything changes after the Russians invade. As the war escalates, the women face the impossible choice: stay or flee. Sveta decides to flee and leaves for the Netherlands with her family, while team captain Valia Onyshchenko and coach Nadia Avdasiova stay behind in the city that is increasingly targeted by Russian bombings. The war has torn the team apart.

Filmmaker Mariia Ponomarova, born in Kyiv but living in the Netherlands for almost a decade, tells the story of these three women in this documentary. It is a story of sorrow and pain, but also of hope - the hope that contact will not be lost, that the bond can be restored, that the sisterhood will survive.